Observations by a European Venture Capitalist
If you’re a digital health founder, funding doesn’t have to mean giving up equity.
While most headlines focus on VC raises and unicorn valuations, a growing number of early-stage startups are tapping into non-dilutive funding—capital that doesn’t cost you cap table real estate.
Grants, competitions, government programs, and strategic partnerships can offer critical runway, validation, and visibility without handing …
You can pitch your vision. You can show traction. But in digital health, one missing ingredient will quietly kill deals:
Clinical credibility.
Investors and enterprise buyers alike want to know: does your product actually work? Not in theory. In practice. In the real world. Especially in healthcare, where patient outcomes—not user engagement—are the true north star.
The reality is, clinical …
Let’s save you 18 months, half a million dollars, and the slow horror of realizing no one wants your product.
If you’re building in digital health, validation isn’t optional. Before you write a line of code or pitch a VC, you need to know:
“Does anyone actually want this?”
And more importantly: “Will they trust it enough to use …
So you’ve got a brilliant idea, a scrappy founding team, maybe even a pilot in motion—and now you need capital. Not just any capital. Smart capital. The kind that understands HIPAA, clinical trials, and why your sales cycle is longer than a B2B SaaS tool.
Welcome to the world of digital health VCs.
This is not a generic list of …
For many digital health startups, the journey begins with a napkin sketch, a prototype duct-taped together in a co-working space, and a dream of disrupting the medical-industrial complex. But breaking into healthcare isn’t like building a food delivery app. It’s a heavily regulated, risk-averse system that doesn’t hand out warm intros or pilot programs to anyone with a pitch deck …
A pitch deck is more than a formality in digital health—it’s your first real diagnostic test. If investors can’t quickly grasp what you’re building, how it fits into the ecosystem, and why your team is qualified to pull it off, they’ll mentally swipe left in 90 seconds or less.
Worse, if you miss the critical healthcare-specific elements (think regulation, reimbursement, …
In digital health, product-market fit means nothing if you can’t navigate the minefield of payers, providers, and regulations. Your idea might be revolutionary—but if your go-to-market (GTM) plan sounds like “we’ll sell to hospitals,” you’re not getting funded.
A killer GTM isn’t just a slide in your deck. It’s your blueprint for survival.
This guide breaks down how digital health …
Digitalisation of health care has accelerated in recent years due to converging forces across technology, demographics and economics. Even years ago, the cost of sensors and computing power was falling while smartphone adoption was soaring, making remote monitoring and telemedicine feasible.
Health systems are grappling with ageing populations and rising rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. …
Europe’s digital health sector has produced world‑class research and life‑saving innovations, but saving lives alone is not enough to build sustainable companies. Many European digital health startups struggle to commercialise ideas that emerge from hospitals and academia, and they often remain stuck in pilot projects.
Fragmented reimbursement systems, strict privacy rules and cultural resistance to change make it difficult to …
Digital health startups across Europe have access to a growing number of accelerator programmes designed to nurture innovation and prepare companies for investment. These accelerators provide mentorship, networks of clinicians and payers, and often small amounts of funding in exchange for equity. We count more than twenty such initiatives, from pan‑European platforms like EIT Health and Startupbootcamp Digital Health to …